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About Me

I am a Ph.D. student at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. I study the History of Biblical Interpretation, which includes Jewish and Christian interpretations of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. My interests are religion, politics, TV, movies, and reading.

Tuesday, November 8, 2016

Election Reflections, and the Best Articles During the 2016 Presidential General Election

Introduction
I voted earlier this month, since Oregon sends out ballots by mail. I
decided to cast my vote early because I was vacillating all over the
place about whom I should vote for, and I wanted closure in that area.

Believe it or not, I seriously contemplated voting for each candidate
at some point in this election season. Donald Trump attracted me
because he is a renegade and people’s sanctimonious criticisms of him
made me want to give him the benefit of a doubt, since I can be a
defiant contrarian. Yet, certain allegations against Trump ultimately
discouraged me from voting for him. Hillary attracted me because she is
a policy wonk and her worldview is rather progressive, which resonates
with my own worldview. But her holier-than-thou attitude and her
shadiness turned me off from voting for her. Gary Johnson had good
ideas, and he departed from conventional libertarianism in areas, but
his unwillingness to display enough intellectual heft turned me off from
him (not that I appreciate the condescending elitists who criticized
him for not knowing about Aleppo). I decided in the end to vote for
Jill Stein. I thought that her spray-painting a bulldozer was tacky,
but at least she is out there fighting for Native Americans. Plus, her
values align most with my own. As far as I can see, she has the least
baggage of the Presidential candidates running (who were on my ballot,
that is). Don’t worry: I voted in Oregon, which (as far as I know) is a
safely blue state, not a swing state!

What follows is a compilation of some of the articles or speeches
that influenced my decision this election year. Or they made points
that I think are important. I categorize them as “Pro-Trump,”
“Anti-Trump,” “Pro-Clinton,” “Anti-Clinton,” “Pro-Jill Stein,”
“Anti-Jill Stein,” “Pro-Gary Johnson,” “Anti-Gary Johnson,” and
“Other.” Please read the following carefully, because I can foresee
people saying that these labels are not necessarily accurate when it
comes to a lot of these articles. Some of these articles fit the labels
that I have assigned to them perfectly: they actually support the
candidates in question. Ann Coulter is definitely pro-Trump, to use an
example! Others do not fit the labels, but I have still categorized
them as I have because they make points that, in my eyes, make the
candidates in question look good. The New York Times, the Washington
Post, and PBS are NOT pro-Trump, but some of their articles have given
Trump the benefit of a doubt, or have said things about Trump that
elevate him in my eyes. Thus, I included some of their material in the
“Pro-Trump” category.

You may notice that the “Pro-Trump” category is the largest. Some of
this reflects my defiant contrarianism, which I mentioned above. When
lots of people gain up on someone and assert that he has done nothing
good or that all of his ideas are stupid, that by itself makes me give
him at least some benefit of a doubt, even if I acknowledge some
validity to the criticisms. I guess I have a soft spot in my heart for
the underdog, especially when that underdog will not allow others to
keep him down but gets back up and keeps on fighting!

I do not wear this conviction on my sleeve. I have been quieter than
usual during this Presidential election, largely because I have wanted
to avoid the vitriol and the misunderstandings that can occur in
acrimonious political debate. This is the first election in which I
have felt intimidated to voice my opinion, and I will be honest: While
there are things that I respect about Trump, he has not elevated the
tone of political discourse.

Please believe and remember this: I respect those who chose a
different path from mine. As the father who lost a son in Vietnam in
that “All in the Family” episode said to the young man who went to
Canada to avoid the draft: “My son did what he had to do, and you did
what you had to do.”

You may disagree with what I say, and I accept that, but I will not
engage in acrimonious political discussions. These links are here,
though, for those who are interested.

I will shut off comments for this post. I voted as I did, I explained why, and that is that. Don't try to sneak your comment about this post under another post. It will not be accepted!

Pro-Trump

Trailer for the PBS Documentary “The Choice 2016”
I love the trailers for “The Choice” documentaries more than the
documentaries themselves! This year, both were good. This documentary
was not “pro-Trump,” but it said things about Trump that I think are
positive. It talks about his alienation from elites and his success as a
promoter, even if he is not as good of a businessman. (Note: A banker
in the documentary made the point about Trump being a good promoter, but
not as good of a businessman.) It says that Trump hired a woman to a
high position, which was rather noteworthy in that time. It also
interviews Omarosa Manigault, an African-American woman who directs outreach to African-American voters for Trump’s campaign.

New York Times fact check on the first Presidential debate between Trump and Hillary
This is probably my favorite post-debate fact-check that I read
during the 2016 general election. Yes, it pointed out Trump’s
inaccuracies. But it also noted that Secretary Clinton and President
Obama had some of the same foreign policy concerns that Trump expressed
in the debate. It shows where Trump is accurate on the judge who
declared stop-and-frisk unconstitutional, rather than just saying that
Trump was wrong, as other fact-check sites did. And it does not declare
Trump as totally inaccurate, when there is room for doubt: on the
allegations Trump was making about Sidney Blumenthal, for example, it is
basically Blumenthal’s word against a reporter’s.

“There is no evidence that we could find, however, that he spoke
against the war before it started, although we did find he expressed
early concerns about the cost and direction of the war a few months
after it started.”

So Trump expressed reservations about the Iraq War soon after it
started. Why should the Howard Stern interview be the only thing that
is considered when looking at Trump’s Iraq War stance? I am tired of
“fact-checkers” who do exactly that, and act as if they are making some
profound observation. They should observe more than they do!

Maybe Trump is not stupid on foreign policy, as a lot of people
think! Buchanan presents Trump as a non-interventionist, which may not
be totally accurate, but it is still refreshing to read a defense of
some of Trump’s foreign policy ideas.

I’m not sure if I agree with the main thesis of this article: that
the Pentagon generals tend to support Trump because Trump is against
regime change in Syria, whereas State Department and CIA people tend to
support Hillary because she was for it. After all, there are many
generals who support Hillary and who criticize Trump! But I still like
this article, and I like a lot of what I read by Rachel Marsden (not
that I have an encyclopedic knowledge of her thought). When it comes to
foreign policy, she seems to be one of the prudent, non-interventionist
voices on the right.

Did Trump really mock a reporter’s disability? This article presents
a convincing case that he did not. When I posted this, even anti-Trump
commenters acknowledged its points, yet they said that it did not
matter because Trump is still a boor, or that Trump was wrong to make
fun of anyone. Fine, but Trump’s critics should at least make a factual
accusation on this! Instead, the claim is still parroted that Trump
mocked a reporter’s disability.

Robert Price is an atheist biblical scholar. But he is also a
conservative, and (what’s more) a Trump supporter! This interview was
interesting, in areas. Of course, many of Price’s fans ask how he can
be so smart and educated and vote for Trump. To be honest, I get tired
of people making those comments over and over! I mean, somebody already
made that comment, so how does it help for somebody else to make it,
like it’s a fresh, original point? In any case, I enjoy reading and
listening to Dr. Price.

Just to be clear, Robert Reich is for Hillary, although he has been
critical of her throughout the election, even when her main opponent was
Trump. I respect Reich’s honesty! This post is from a year ago, and
Reich says the following:

“I also began to understand why many of [the red state people Reich
encountered] are attracted to Donald Trump. I had assumed they were
attracted by Trump’s blunderbuss and his scapegoating of immigrants.
That’s part of it. But mostly, I think, they see Trump as someone who’ll
stand up for them – a countervailing power against the perceived
conspiracy of big corporations, Wall Street, and big government. Trump
isn’t saying what the moneyed interests in the GOP want to hear. He’d
impose tariffs on American companies that send manufacturing overseas,
for example. He’d raise taxes on hedge-fund managers. (‘The hedge-fund
guys didn’t build this country,’ Trump says.
‘They’re “getting away with murder.’) He’d protect Social Security and
Medicare. I kept hearing ‘Trump is so rich he can’t be bought.'”

That’s something I have liked about Trump: that he breaks with
Republican orthodoxy! Did you know that, this year, not just the
Democratic national platform, but also the Republican one, called for
the return of Glass-Steagall? Unfortunately, though, Trump has also
embraced traditional Republican beliefs, such as tax cuts for the rich.

Michael Bloomberg tried to address moderates and independents, but
who are the true moderates? I loved this part of the article, which is
similar to the point that Robert Reich makes above:

“Research from political scientists David Broockman and Doug Ahler suggests that most self-identified moderate voters aren’t [Bloomberg’s] kind of centrist
at all. People who want lots of government programs but also are
skeptical of abortion and immigration are a more typical kind of
moderate. Indeed, Donald Trump is probably closer to most real American
moderates than Bloomberg.”

When I heard that Trump wanted to meet with the NRA to get to the
bottom of why they are against gun control for those on the no-fly list,
I thought, “It is in times like this that I love this man!” Trump
wasn’t just swallowing the NRA spiel, as many Republicans do. He was
challenging them. And, in the first Presidential debate, he actually
agreed with Hillary on this issue, even though he also thought that the
NRA expressed legitimate reservations that should be addressed (i.e.,
innocent people may be on the no-fly list). By the way, the ACLU has similar reservations.

Cal Thomas is a conservative syndicated columnist. “Well, that means
he’s biased, so we can’t believe anything he says!”, some might say.
But Cal made noteworthy points about Hillary’s positions on taxes.
During this election season, I have been irritated by so-called
“fact-checkers.” They perform an important service, but they don’t
always tell the whole story. When Trump says that Hillary wants to
raise taxes on the middle class, certain “fact-checkers” come back and
say that she does not—-that she only wants to raise taxes on the rich.
But Cal Thomas makes the case that she has favored certain taxes that
would hit the middle class: the soda tax, for example. Some
fact-checkers probe more deeply than others!

This came out after the second debate between Trump and Hillary. I
liked this statement that Pat made: “Sometime this weekend, Trump made a
decision: If he is going down to defeat, he will go out as Trump, not
some sniveling penitent begging forgiveness from hypocrites who fear and
loathe him.”

A funny thing happened to me in 2016. I got back to reading Ann
Coulter! I hadn’t read her since 2012, I think. I started again in
2016 because I wanted to see how she defended one whom many thought was
indefensible: Trump! I do not care for Ann Coulter’s vitriol or
demonization of the other side. At the same time, she has offered
decent arguments for many of her positions. This particular article
responds to many of the common criticisms of Trump. I do disagree with
some of what Ann says. For example, just because women did not come
forward before to accuse Trump, that does not mean they are wrong in
their accusations. They may have kept silent out of fear of being sued
or hurt professionally, and they came forward when there was strength in
numbers. These accusations and Trump’s threats of lawsuits against his
accusers are reasons that I decided against voting for Trump, but, to
be fair, I could not vote for Clinton either because there have been
accusations against her husband about sexual assault. (Note: I do believe that those who commit sexual assault, just like many
criminals, should be able to be reintegrated into society and make a
contribution, but they should pay their debts to society and learn about
the consequences of their acts on their victims, taking steps of
repentance.) All of that said,
I still appreciate some of the points that Ann makes: about Donald’s
charity, about Hillary’s saber-rattling against Russia, and about the
tendency of Democrats this election year to see conspiracies, though I
would add that many Republicans, and Trump himself, have indulged in
conspiracy theories, as well. I believe that there is light and
darkness in all of us, and that includes Trump and Hillary.

I loved this speech! Trump appealed to Bernie Sanders supporters,
saying that the system was rigged against Bernie and that Bernie was
right about Libya. Trump advocated protection for homosexuals and said
he was impressed when his Republican audience applauded that. Yet,
Trump expressed humble surprise that evangelicals have embraced him,
perhaps because he feels that their acceptance of him is undeserved. He
says that he knows the system, and that is why he can fix it! That
reminds me of Joseph Kennedy when FDR appointed him to police Wall
Street: Kennedy knew the tricks of the trade, so he could stop the
shenanigans (see here)!

Prior to 2015, who would have guessed? Trump, who is notorious for
his luxury, affairs, and marriages, would be endorsed by Phyllis
Schlafly, a towering figure of the religious right, back when endorsing
Trump was radioactive. And Trump showed gratitude by speaking at
Schlafly’s funeral.

Remember
when it came out that Trump explored doing business in Castro's Cuba? A
progressive friend of mine predicted that this would cost Trump a lot
of Cuban votes in Florida! We'll see what happens. But anti-Castro
Cuban Humberto Fontova still likes Trump. And Humberto is seriously
anti-Castro: the vast majority of his columns are about that topic!
People can probably narrate the events differently, but check out
Humberto's narrative. This column could be entitled "The Education of
Donald Trump"!

Hillary mentioned this in the third debate with Trump, and Trump
replied that he did have criticisms of President Reagan at the time,
including Reagan’s stance on trade. Although by this point I had
decided against voting for Trump, this exchange increased, rather than
decreased, my opinion of him. Trump was going against Republican
orthodoxy by criticizing Reagan! The ad itself focuses on how other
countries should carry more of the burden for their own defense, a point
that Trump has made repeatedly during the 2016 campaign. Many,
including myself, have probably wondered what Donald’s true positions
are and which he has adopted for political convenience, with all of the
shifts in positions that he has made. Well, here is an area in which he
has been consistent, and it shows that he has long had a concern about
public policy, meaning he is not just some blowhard or reality TV star
seeking to achieve the next level of fame and prominence. And, believe
it or not, I remember having a discussion with a liberal professor who
made a similar point to what Donald made in that ad. This professor was
saying that U.S. soldiers were essentially mercenaries for the Japanese
in the first Gulf War, since the Japanese got more oil from the Gulf
than we did. This professor and Trump would probably disagree more than
agree, and they would probably even disagree on the rationale for their
areas of agreement. Still, the overlap is interesting.

It certainly made me sick, I can tell you that! This is an article
that turned me off from Trump. According to this article, Trump refused
to pay his caterer, then threatened to tie her case up in court if she
sued him. What a bully. This article made me hope in karma, or God’s
justice, or whatever you want to call it!

And maybe Trump will get his come-uppance after he loses the election
(assuming that he loses, which I think he will). To quote Maureen:

“One friend of Trump’s from the real estate world is worried that
Trump does not understand how the groups he has derogated and demeaned
will wreak revenge on him. ‘He’s alienated women,’ the friend says.
‘He’s alienated wealthy people. He’s alienated people from the Middle
East. He’s alienated people from Latin America. These are all fertile
ground where people could buy condos from him.'”

Aside from that, the article is interesting because it is about how
Trump and the Clintons helped each other when both were on the
downs-and-outs.

This article provides context for the real estate discrimination
lawsuit against Trump, and Trump looks pretty bad! Trump’s past record
on this should be considered. Yet, Bill Clinton’s record is imperfect
on civil rights, too, as you can see in the third article in the
“Anti-Clinton” section of this post. Plus, there is the possibility
that people can change.

Nowadays, there are not too many people who throw the abortion issue
into my face when I say that I am a progressive. Maybe I am just
lucky! If you are a progressive and are not so fortunate, you may want
to read Rachel Held Evans’ defense of voting for Hillary Clinton. She
says that voting for Hillary is actually a pro-life choice, when it
comes to the abortion issue. In the comment section, Rachel gives the
usual spiel discouraging people from voting for a third party because
then that horrible Trump would get into office, a spiel that I came to
find rather boring during the 2016 general election. Still, her post
makes good points and is well-documented.

Hillary Clinton became a Senator not long after Bill Clinton’s
impeachment, and she had a lot of enemies in the Senate! But she won
people over by listening to them, and she worked with them on causes.
Could a President Hillary do the same? Or is Washington, D.C. so
poisoned with rancorous partisanship, that this is no longer possible?

A friend with whom I attended high school linked to this. We were in
an evangelical youth group together. This article came out when
Hillary was battling Bernie, and people were criticizing Hillary for
voting for the Iraq War. This article provides context for her vote.
According to this article, Hillary was far from being a mindless hawk!

This is from a left-wing publication. You think Trump is bad on
immigration? Well, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were not exactly
progressive on this issue, either! Actually, the opposite was the case!

This article came out in 2008, not 2016. I found it during the backlash over Trump’s “Second Amendment people” comment.
Right-wing sites were referring to Hillary’s comments in 2008 to argue
that Hillary is no better, but I wanted to post the article that says
that she apologized for her remarks, to give a fuller and fairer
portrait of Hillary. Still, with all the righteous indignation against
things that Trump says, it is good to ask: have Democratic candidates
said similar things in the past? Maybe Hillary comes across as more
refined than Trump, but her comments were pretty cold, in my opinion.

Daily Mail Article on Dolly Kyle and Bill Clinton’s Poor Civil Rights Record as Governor
I did not write down the full title because it is long and has crass
quotes. People have criticized this article because it is based on what
Dolly Kyle said (Kyle says she was a mistress of Bill Clinton), and why
should we trust her word? Good question. But some of what she says
about Bill Clinton concerns his record as Governor, and it is
verifiable. Bill Clinton was accused of violating the Voting Rights Act
through a bill that he signed. See here
for the case. I have not found independent confirmation that Bill
Clinton supported racial profiling as Governor, though. To be fair,
Bill Clinton did do positive things for voting rights as President (see here).
Still, a case can be made that Bill Clinton’s Presidency helped the
African-American community in areas, but also hurt it (see Michelle
Alexander’s article here).

Believe it or not, this article actually inclined me to vote for Jill
Stein, which is what I ultimately did! Maybe the “nuclear war”
rhetoric is extreme, but why should we assume that Hillary is the peace
candidate, whereas Trump is the war candidate? As Stein notes, Trump
may be inclined to support peace, since he has so many holdings in other
countries and would want to protect them! Commenters on this article
has argued that Stein has a political motive for demonizing Hillary
rather than Trump, since Stein wants to take votes away from Hillary.
That may be, but I still thought that her analysis of world events was
insightful and empathetic towards other countries’ interests. I liked
the non-interventionist aspects of Trump’s foreign policy, and the
compassionate aspects of Hillary’s domestic policy, so I voted for Jill,
who combined (and surpassed) the two.

Many progressives I know were demonizing the Brexit people, calling
them ignorant rubes, racists, and xenophobes. Jill Stein rejected the
bigotry that motivated many to vote to leave the EU, but she also saw in
the Brexit vote a legitimate cry against neo-liberalism and
globalization. I applaud her for this. She was accused of backtracking
from this position, but even an article that claims that seems to say that she still champions the same values that were in her original statement.

Remember when people were saying that Gary Johnson was stupid because
he did not know what Aleppo was? It turns out: neither did the New
York Times! This reminds me of those journalists who made fun of Dan
Quayle for misspelling potato, but they themselves had to go to the
dictionary to find out how it was spelled (or so Quayle says in his
autobiography).

This article is actually anti-Johnson, but I am including it in the
“pro” section because it makes me like Johnson more! Do you feel
discomfort when you hear libertarians criticize the Civil Rights Act, or
say that companies have a right to discriminate? Well, Gary Johnson is
not that kind of libertarian, at least when it comes to wedding cakes.

Personally, I would not want a universal basic income to replace
welfare, for I doubt that a universal basic income would be enough to
help poor people and families. Still, I respect Johnson for being open
to a universal basic income. His libertarianism is not a political
“every-man-for-himself” (or woman for herself)!

A left-leaning past professor of mine and Rush Limbaugh both linked
to this article! Essentially, it argues that elites look out for their
own. I hope Rush realizes that this goes for conservative elites, too!